Monday, January 28, 2013

Poor Andy
Murray. On we go.

The early
evening national news last night didn’t mention him in the headlines, and only
got to the item at the end after a lot of football. Even my husband, who is not
remotely interested, said “No tennis?” when he heard the headlines. The
Scottish news, on the contrary, started in Melbourne and went on to football thereafter,
despite having a surprise result to report. (Celtic got beaten.)

I keep
thinking, rather irrelevantly, of Kipling’s poem, “Tommy Atkins”:

“Then it’s
Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?’

But it’s
‘Thin red line of ‘eroes’ when the drums begin to roll.”

What Murray has got to do is win Wimbledon
– and that’s not impossible any more. Then he’ll suddenly find himself an
honorary Englishman.

We had a
nice weekend with Archie. I have measured the big comfortable Marks &
Spencer sweater he was wearing, just in case Scotland win the Calcutta Cup on
Saturday. We spent some possibly fruitful time with the Surface. Archie doesn’t
like Windows 8.

I have also
straightened out Amazon.fr, I think. They were apparently trying to use the old
credit card number although they know the new one perfectly well, just as
Amazon.co.uk knows it. My Amazon password is a highbrow French word. I always imagine a little
frisson over there in Paris
when I type it in.

I’d feel
more kindly disposed towards credit card companies who interfere with my
spending – not their fault, this time – if they had paid the slightest
attention when I went to Theo and Jenni’s wedding. After years of blameless
book-and-yarn buying from Drummond place, I suddenly turned up hiring a car and
staying in a hotel in Old Saybrook, CT. The credit card people didn’t bat an
eye.

Knitting

Beverly, that is exciting news about your class with Franklin and the picture of you with him. Here’s
the link, from your comment yesterday. I didn’t quite like to post the
picture itself, without your permission. No, the class I did with him was
lace-in-general, Shetland and Orenburg – do I remember Faroese, or not? – with
a scarf pattern of Franklin’s
own thrown in. I’d very much like to attend a lace-edging class. He is, in
addition to his other charms, a most conscientious teacher, meticulously
well-prepared. And very well-informed.

The yoke of
Ed’s Gardening Sweater has benefited from all this tennis. A couple more
evenings should get me to the exciting shoulder treatment. That will probably
go very quickly – I will find myself embarrassingly soon at the what next?
moment. Even if Scotland
win on Saturday, per impossibile, it’ll take a while for the yarn to get here.

1 comment:

That's a shame, as Murray has done better than Tim Henman ever did. And for Rachel, I forgot that when I lived in Ottawa I could buy books that were not available in the US. Sure enough, Cazalet books are available on Kindle in Canada, but I can't buy one, unless I figure out how to disguise myself.